By Elliott Brack, editor and publisher | At the rail crossing, I was about six cars back as the Norfolk Southern train rambled southerly. Before the train cleared the crossing, there were about six cars behind me. I was at the crossing about 4-5 minutes, for it was a long train.
Watching the train glide past the crossing from afar, suddenly I realized that all the rail cars were low, in fact, all were empty flat-bed units. These are the rail cars that haul the multi-modal containers. But why were all the rail cars empty?
Then it hit me: these cars were all heading south. These units had previously been in use to haul containers to northern destinations. Now they were being shipped south to be loaded again and returned northward.
The immediate destination of the empty rail cars may have been the Atlanta rail yards, but likely their final destination for re-loading would be the Port of Savannah. The port needs an average of 440 rail flatbeds per day for loading from the ships from around the world. After all, the Port Authority of Georgia had a 14.2 percent growth in container units last year. It’s the fourth busiest container port in the nation, and continually growing!
In effect, here was a demonstration of the power of modern international shipping. After all, you seldom see empty rail cars going northward. The flatcars we see headed north are crammed with containers bound for the northern railheads, we maintain. Check out the next train you see headed northward.
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Clark
Buford Rep. David Clark has just finished his first term at the General Assembly. Check out his dress on the last day of the session. My pardons to Rep. Clark, and don’t know about others, but wearing clothing depicting the flag of the United States is distasteful, to say the least, to me. But this was his outfit at the Capitol recently.
Rep. Clark is in real estate and owns a nutraceutical distribution company. Shortly after high school, he joined the military, served as a U.S. Army Ranger and was deployed to Afghanistan. His house committees includes Defense and Veteran’s Affairs; Small Business Development and State Properties.
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APPLE TALK: If you have a Windows-based personal computer (PC), skip over this. We want to talk to Apple computer users in this segment.
If your computer seems to be “slowing down” in its operations, let me suggest an improvement that for your Apple that might speed up your Apple. Here are the steps to take:
- Go to Finder.
- At the very top left by the Apple logo, you will find several areas to click: Finder, File, Edit, View, Go, Window and Help. Click the “Go” item.
- Pull down and click “Applications.”
- Go to and click “Utilities.”
- Click “Disc Utility.”
- On the left, click “Macintosh HD.”
- Up above, click “First Aid.”
- Then below the white space click “Verify Disk Permissions” and follow instructions.
The computer will automatically see if any files are corrupted. After it completes a cycle of several minutes, you should click “Verify Disk” and later “Repair disk permissions.”
Then you should have a more brisk operation of your computer, all embedded in your computer by the smart engineers at Apple. Good luck.
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MAILING CHANGE: The City of Peachtree Corners says that the United States Postal Service now recognizes Peachtree Corners as a legal mailing address, with Zip Code 30092. To avoid confusion with adjacent cities, businesses should include “Peachtree Corners” as the city in the business address and on business websites. Residents may also use Peachtree Corners in their mailing addresses.
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